Transit firm is scolded by OCTA

A transportation company that county officials say has left disabled bus riders stranded in Orange County was given 60 days to improve performance or lose its contract.

Veolia Transportation, based in Illinois, has shown improvements yet failed to meet contract standards despite being paid $30 million a year, Orange County Transportation Authority officials said.

OCTA board members gave the company a tongue lashing Monday after its 90-day review but said that switching service providers without a substitute firm on board would cause too many disruptions.

“If I could cut your contract right now, I would do it in a second and get you out of this county,” OCTA Chairwoman Carolyn Cavecche said. “I think you’ve thumbed your noses ... at our disabled riders and our taxpayers.”

Board members recommended that OCTA begin talks with other companies to start mixing their services with Veolia’s to provide a smooth transition if Veolia fails in its performance over the next 60 days.

Veolia has said that the sheer size of OCTA’s Access program -- which picks up 4,500 riders daily, dispatching more than 230 specially equipped buses in heavily congested urban areas -- has proved difficult to manage.

Some OCTA board members, however, accused the firm of “bait and switch” when it won the contract from Laidlaw nine months ago. The bait was loading up on top managers who have since left the company, they said, noting the findings of a consultant’s report that few of Veolia’s original management team is still in Orange County.

“The result of these changes,” consultant Roy E. Glauthier said, “is a lack of consistency in supervision, direction and management.”

Though Michael D. Griffus, Veolia’s president and chief operating officer, disputed some of the report’s conclusions, he apologized to OCTA and disabled riders who needed transportation but were inconvenienced by his company.

“I think Veolia had some real bad start-up problems,” Griffus said. He said he was hired to the firm’s top management position in December when “we put everything we could into improving the services.”

But the company’s on-time performance has failed to meet the transportation authority’s 94% standard, according to OCTA. In July, transportation officials said, it posted 86% on-time pickups, which it raised to 92% in November, but then dropped back to 88% the following month.

Part of the problem, Griffus said, is the high attrition of drivers, which stands at 15% to 20% the first year. They are hired and trained, only to discover that driving one or two disabled riders at a time is not for them, he said.

Failing to meet contract standards has resulted in $800,000 in fines imposed by the county from July through January, said Erin Rogers, OCTA’s manager of transportation services. The money has been deducted from monthly payments made to the company, she said.

Despite its poor performance, Veolia asked for more money last week in a telephone call to Art Leahy, OCTA’s chief executive. After hearing the board’s discontent at the meeting, however, Griffus said he would most likely drop the request and “live by our bid.”

Christie Rudder, an advocate for the disabled with the Dayle McIntosh Center in Garden Grove, urged the board to continue using Veolia because complaints to the center had tapered off.

“Switching to another bus company now,” she said, “would create a whole new nightmare.”

According to Glauthier’s report, the company was not hiring and training enough bus operators, was slow to recognize and respond to increased staffing needs, and had a ratio of nearly 6 customer complaints per 1,000 passengers when the standard set by the contract was 1 per 1,000.

david.reyes@latimes.com